ヴィオリカ・ウルスレアク - Viorica Ursuleac(1894-1985)

Born into a musical family living in the city of Czernowitz (known as ‘little Vienna’ when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire) Ursuleac, whose father was a priest in the Greek Orthodox church, studied at the Vienna Academy of Music for five years and later with Lilli Lehmann in Berlin and with Philipp Forstén and Beatrice Sutter-Kottlar in Frankfurt. While visiting the Croatian capital of Zagreb she was heard singing by the intendant of the city’s opera house who offered her a contract. She made her debut there as Charlotte / Werther in 1922 and subsequently sang a number of roles, all in Croatian; she returned to Czernowitz to escape a failed marriage, singing with the local opera company for the 1923–1924 season.

At a concert in Bucharest Ursuleac was heard by Queen Marie of Romania, who now assisted the development of her career. She auditioned for the conductor Felix Weingartner (himself from Croatia), who had excellent connections with the Vienna Volksoper; here she obtained a contract for the two years 1924–1926. Hearing that the Frankfurt Opera was in need of a soprano she auditioned for its music director Clemens Krauss. He rejected her, as he disliked singers from the Balkans, but when she re-auditioned under a fictitious name, she was accepted by Krauss and sang with the company for four years until 1930, appearing in the first performance of Sekles’s Die zehn Küsse in 1926 as well as in many repertory works. She and Krauss also married.

While at Frankfurt Ursuleac began to receive offers to sing elsewhere, notably at Dresden and in Wiesbaden, where she took part in the first performance of Krenek’s Der Diktator in 1928. In 1930 she sang at the Salzburg Festival for the first time, returning there annually until 1934 to sing the Marschallin / Der Rosenkavalier (1930–1933), the Countess / Le nozze di Figaro (1930–1934), the Empress / Die Frau ohne Schatten (1932–1933), Fiordiligi / Così fan tutte (1932–1934) and the title role in Die aegyptische Helena (1933–1934).

From 1930 to 1935 Ursuleac was with the Vienna State Opera (one source also suggests that she sang with the Dresden State Opera for the 1930–1931 season before moving to Vienna: she certainly took part in the first performance of d’Albert’s opera Mister Wu at Dresden in 1932). In Vienna she became a rival of Lotte Lehmann who, although arguably the finer artist, lacked Ursuleac’s extraordinarily free upper range, a prerequisite for the finest singing of Richard Strauss’s music. She created the title role in Strauss’s Arabella at Dresden in 1933, the conducting of which her husband took over after Fritz Busch fell foul of the ruling Nazi party. Later major Strauss roles that she created, all with her husband conducting, were Maria / Friedenstag (Munich, 1938), the Countess / Capriccio (Munich, 1942) and Danae / Die Liebe der Danae (Salzburg, dress rehearsal, 1944). Other Strauss roles which she sang included the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos and Chrysothemis / Elektra.

Ursuleac moved to the Berlin State Opera for the 1935–1937 seasons and then to the Bavarian State Opera from 1937 to 1944, in each case with her husband serving as the General Music Director. She returned to the Salzburg Festival to sing Arabella in 1942 and 1943.

In England Ursuleac made her only appearances in 1934 at the Royal Opera House, London, when she sang Desdemona / Otello, Dorotka / Schwanda the Bagpiper and Arabella – of which the critic Richard Capell commented: ‘Her singing, if not consistent, had a generally victorious quality, and details were exquisite.’ Her only transatlantic appearance was in Tristan und Isolde opposite Kirsten Flagstad in 1948 at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires with Erich Kleiber conducting, a production for which she especially learnt the role of Brangäne. At La Scala Milan, she sang the Empress, Chrysothemis, Fiordiligi and Sieglinde / Die Walküre.

After World War II Ursuleac settled with her husband in Vienna, making her last operatic appearance at the Vienna State Opera as the Marschallin in 1952 (although she continued to sing in Munich). Following Krauss’s death in 1954 she retired to live a reclusive life in the Tyrol.

At her best, Ursuleac conveyed the ecstasy of Strauss’s heroines with complete conviction, the composer himself describing her as ‘the truest of the true’ of interpreters of his operas. Her considerable repertoire also included Senta / Der fliegende Holländer, Elisabetta / Don Carlo and the title roles in Tosca and Turandot.